Itching to tell you all about nettles
THIS week I have been standing in nettles, wearing my shorts and short socks – and it has left me itching for a couple of days.
I was trying to find the dog’s ball in undergrowth and felt the stings all around one ankle and up the other leg.
After that there was that strange discomfort that you get from these stings, which affected me later when I was in bed.
I tried dock leaves and some cream, but it was still there the next morning, to remind me not to mess with stinging nettles.
It’s the histamine in nettles that causes the irritation and the anti-histamine in dock leaves that does give you some relief.
Nettles are certainly a plant that is not appreciated outside naturalist circles, because it is a pretty important plant for lots of insects.
And, of course, insects are massively important for all of us.
Stinging nettles are great wildlife attractors: small tortoiseshell and peacock butterflies’ caterpillars use them as food plants, ladybirds feast on the aphids that shelter among them and seed-eating birds enjoy their autumn spoils.
If you have a nettle patch in your garden or local park, you will almost certainly see a lot of butterflies hanging around that spot.
The stinging nettle is a familiar and common plant.
It can be found growing in gardens, hedgerows, fields, woodlands and many other habitats.
Its preference for damp, fertile and disturbed ground makes it a good coloniser of places enriched by human activities, such as agriculture and development.
To avoid the more painful way of identifying a stinging nettle, look for the hairs on its stem, its drooping, catkin flowers and oval, toothed leaves.
It was used for food, herbal remedies, dyes and fibres for hundreds of years.
During the Second World War, children were encouraged to collect nettles so that they could then be used to produce a dark green dye for camouflage.
Of course, using the young leaves at the top of the nettle is a great way to make nettle soup.
So while I have a recently itchy experience of nettles, I will continue to respect them and refuse to stamp on them in their patches where I walk.
I just wish the dog could get the ball before it rolled into the undergrowth.